E-commerce websites—possibly to a greater degree than any other type of website— depend on keyword research to succeed. If you sell a service, for example, this is difficult and involves a larger time investment: requiring a greater quantity of content and keyword variations to succeed.

With e-commerce, you need to pick keywords you know you can compete on and must thus act with a higher level of precision. Let’s explore how you can build your e-commerce site around keywords:

1. Keyword Research

Here, you mostly want to go long-tail—and especially so when you’re just starting out. That’s because long-tail keywords have higher conversion rates.

Why?

Searchers have a rock-solid idea of what they’re looking for, and the more words they enter, the closer they are to buying. Therefore, your product pages must be perfectly optimized for those keywords.

Amazon’s “autosuggest” is a great tool to find keyword ideas. Conversely, Google’s Keyword Planner is less ideal (although it works) since everyone else out there uses it: keeping competition high. Dozens of keyword research tools are also at your disposal, including Ubersuggest.

2. Site Architecture

Like all other websites, your e-commerce site should follow the “3-click rule”: meaning users can find your product pages in just three clicks…or fewer! The best structure is:

1. Home page
2. Category page
3. Subcategory page
4. Product page

Not only does this make it easy for visitors to find what they want (now a key component of SEO), but it also keeps SEO more concentrated on these various pages: meaning you’ll rank higher in search and also win more sales.

Every website URL should mention the primary keyword, which is another signal telling Google what your page is about.

3. On-Page SEO

This is crucial, and fortunately, not too difficult to do!

Your page title must include your primary keyword.  Then, add words like “new,” “buy,” “limited time only,” “free shipping,” and “20% off” to score the most clicks. You can also add some of these words, and your primary keyword, to your meta description.

With respect to effectiveness, think Amazon product pages. Each page should boast around 1000 words for the best ranking ability, but make sure they are designed to help win you on-site sales. If you simply have too many pages to include 1000 words on each, start with the one that’s most important and work your way down. Add your keyword where it makes sense and doesn’t sound awkward.

Wrapping Up

If you follow these tips, ranking will be so much easier and the sales will flow. So, get to it!